WT: Pork Rockets

The episode opens with a long discussion of Artemis/SLS, which the hosts describe as a politically driven NASA program built to preserve existing contractors rather than as an engineering-first project. They argue it was shaped by pork-barrel politics, hydrogen’s complexity, and sunk costs, and they debate whether the program should keep going, whether the public should call it out more directly, and whether any government backup system should be structurally different from private launch providers. The conversation then moves through several space and tech stories: Blue Origin’s New Shepard booster failure where the escape capsule separated as designed, Rocket Lab’s successful mission and the tougher funding environment for smaller space companies, and a discussion of BlueWalker 3 and the tradeoff between bright low-Earth-orbit hardware and better telecommunications. The hosts also react to a Nazi space-mirror concept and spend time on the Brellyon/Borelion ultra-reality display, before closing with media picks including Toem, Cobra Kai, David Milch’s memoir Life's Work, and Andrew’s discussion of publishing deals and Masterclass. Key topics Pork-barrel politics and contractor favoritism in NASA programs: The hosts explicitly describe Artemis/SLS as a congressional compromise meant to keep existing contractors funded, not a program designed primarily around spaceflight goals. Hydrogen propulsion as a recurring reliability problem: Hydrogen is repeatedly described as difficul